When it comes to launching new products and expanding their reach beyond their existing market, banks need to adopt modern digital marketing techniques that they may have eschewed in the past. One such approach is affiliate marketing, which businesses use regularly to generate awareness and drive customer acquisition at a reasonable cost.
When executed correctly, an affiliate marketing program can generate substantial returns by leveraging existing third-party audiences and expertise to increase brand awareness and drive qualified applications for their business credit card product at a much lower acquisition cost than possible with advertising-based approaches.
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How is affiliate marketing different from influencer marketing?
Though affiliate marketing overlaps with influencer marketing in many respects, there are also significant differences between the two strategies.
The two most important differences to be aware of are the type of content that is created and the underlying business model.
Influencers typically create content designed to entertain their audience, and product promotions they do as part of a sponsorship will typically not be designed to maximize sales. As a result, sponsors generally pay influencers on a per-post or retainer basis.
Affiliate marketers, by contrast, are in the business of informing their audiences about products and services they might find useful and the content they create is designed to drive sales and conversions. They get paid a commission for every converting action they generate – for e-commerce, this is a percentage of the sales generated; for financial services, this is typically a fixed amount for every application.
Managing your affiliate marketing program once launched
Once your program is launched, it will be important to closely monitor performance, generate regular reports, and meet with your partners. KPI tracking and regular communication are critical for maintaining relationships and iterating your strategy towards successful outcomes, particularly early in your business credit card program’s development. And of course, you want to ensure you pay your partners on time so they don’t terminate the relationship.
For instance, an affiliate that drives a lot of applications that never convert into approved customers may end up being a poor fit – or it may indicate that your credit quality rules are too strict. If your agreement with this partner is on a per-application basis, you’ll have to make the decision to either adjust your program to increase approval rates or end the relationship with that partner because it's a poor fit. Conversely, a partner on a pre-approval agreement with a low approval rate may end up being unhappy with the performance and could choose to feature your product less prominently – or they may even end the relationship themselves.
Launch a modern business credit card program with Torpago
Before launching any marketing campaigns, you need to have a modern business credit card program worth promoting. We know building these programs is expensive, so we created our PoweredBy solution suite.
PoweredBy includes a modern and powerful business credit card platform designed specifically for banks and credit unions seeking to diversify their product offerings. Its high-tech features are prohibitively time-consuming and expensive to build in-house. We pair our platform with a range of program support services, including marketing support, to help our customers succeed.
Request a demo of our PoweredBy solutions today to learn more about our approach and how we help banks and credit unions grow.
